


Parting Glass

by miranda_wave (miranda_askher)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Reichenbach, UST, character death but not really, too much beer is still not enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-09
Updated: 2012-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-29 05:55:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miranda_askher/pseuds/miranda_wave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is gone, but still finds his way into the corner of every mirror, every crowd glimpsed out a window. John and Lestrade reflect and raise a glass.</p><p>John/Sherlock UST, vaguely implied Lestrade/Sherlock UST. Post-Reichenbach (or similar), no spoilers for anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parting Glass

**Author's Note:**

> But since it falls unto my lot  
> That I should rise and you should not,  
> I gently rise and softly call,  
> Goodnight and joy be with you all  
> -"The Parting Glass"

“We never were, y’know? People talked, we let them talk, but we were never—”

John breaks off abruptly, gulping his beer. It’s his fourth pint, maybe fifth, and he shows no signs of making it his last.

John Watson, Lestrade reflects, used to be a happy drunk, slapping shoulders all ‘round and shouting good-naturedly at footballers on the telly. He never thought he’d see John here, staring into the bottom of his glass like it’s not even there, like he wants to follow it down into the thick glass and warped light. John used to be…well, John used to be a lot of things.

So did he.

“I know you weren’t. I’m not a complete idiot, John, much as Sherlock—well.” Lestrade swallows hard around the unbreakable lump in his throat. “Do you regret it? Not being that, with him?”

John shifts the empty pint back and forth across the table, eyes following the play of reflections on the scarred wood. He is silent for a long time.

“I don’t know, Greg,” he says finally, sounding surprised—at the question, the answer, or his own honesty, Lestrade doesn’t know. “I really don’t.”

“The two of you were close as most lovers I’ve seen. Closer, even,” he observes, mind drifting away, drifting towards the people walking by outside the window. Drifting to the tall young man smoking by the door, glowing cigarette inscribing graceful arcs around his elegant hands as he gestures. Drifting across the street to the androgynous figure striding by, long sweep of black coat topped by a pale face that seems to revel in the cold. None of them are quite right, but there is always something, some little detail that his detective’s eyes can’t help but catch.

John follows his eyes to where their reflections superimpose on the faces outside. He nods once and drains his beer.

“I think sometimes I’m going mad. I’ll see someone and for a minute I’ll swear it’s him, that the bastard tricked us all and he’ll turn around and just be there, and I’ll kill him, I really will. Or maybe I’ll snog him till he’s dead. For just a second, in my head. Then whoever it is will turn and his nose will be too small or his hair a bit too red. And here I am again. Just like this, staring at people I don’t know out a window.”

Lestrade says nothing.

“He was my best mate. A real bastard and a great bloody arse sometimes, but he wouldn’t have been Sherlock otherwise.”

 _He was that,_ Lestrade wants to say. _He was that. And we wouldn’t have traded it. I wouldn’t have traded it for a second._

Instead he says, though he knows he shouldn’t for both their sakes, “Another?”

“Yeah, my round. You?”

Lestrade nods shortly and, as John makes his way toward the bar, turns back toward the window. If he doesn’t look too closely, the man with the cigarette almost is Sherlock, if Sherlock were here and smiling that rare genuine grin. It is a nice thought. He lets himself think it, just for a minute. He lets himself imagine that the forensic reports were wrong, that Mycroft Holmes never almost broke into tears in front of him, that he never had to see that barren, deathly look on John’s face, colder than any body. He imagines that the man they lost does not echo like an amputated limb in the way John carries himself, or in his own mind like the broken ends of sentences never finished or uttered at all.

John plunks a fresh pint on the table before him and it’s just them, two men and the ghost of a third mourning what never was in a noisy, dingy pub.

With a heavy sigh, John slides into the booth. He picks up his beer and starts to take a sip, then pauses and raises the glass.

“To Sherlock,” he says solemnly.

“To Sherlock,” Lestrade replies, and drinks deeply, letting the sharp taste of hops pull his attention away from the people outside and the young man’s cigarette guttering out on the pavement.

* * * * *

Sherlock shivers in his battered leather jacket and watchcap, the unfamiliar clothes doing little to keep out the night. Cold seeps through from the bricks behind him as he waits in the shadows of a chippy’s bins, gazing across the street at a warm pub. Inside, two men who look as if they have seen better days raise their glasses in some serious acknowledgement. One has sandy hair precisely the color of John’s; the other holds himself with Lestrade’s posture. But they are not quite right. Perhaps it is only the distortion of the window that makes them look so familiar.

He pushes off from the wall and starts down the street, imagining that somewhere they too are safe and raising a glass.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own anything. Obviously.


End file.
